Hi all,
Here are my notes on the Superintendent’s Transportation Task Force Meeting on Oct 17th.  The short summary is that it’s likely Specialty Programs (like the TAG Centers) will require parents to drop off and pick up their kids at an unattended hub.  The Specialty Subgroup stance: “It’s reasonable to expect to ask families to get them to and from centralized stops”.  Your PGTAG board is still working to get as much input into the implementation, particularly including Joseph’s suggestion of staging it in phases to ensure it has real cost savings and is workable.

Full report below.

Sandy

Details: They had run subgroups on Aug 2 and Sept 26, here they were each giving a short report.  Final reports are due Oct 21, management gets a draft Oct 26, and the final is sent to the Deputy Super on Oct 28.  Then they go into implementation.  So we didn’t really get a chance to make comments here.

I was an observer and sat in the audience chairs; everyone else (except one other audience member) were on the committees and sat at the main table.  I did raise one question, covered later, and talked with the sub-committee head on Specialty Transport.  The team was specifically defined as ‘county employees and representatives with a stake in sustaining operating costs’ and included the DC MTA and Montgomery County PS.

The reporting committees were County Infrastructure, Bell time, Specialized Programs, Routing, Stop Placement Assessment, Boundary Planning, and Rider-Ship Analysis.  I have copious notes on each, if anyone wants a briefing, but the only I’ll talk about here is Specialized Programs, aka TAG Centers (among others).  I will note that each group had some questions and debate, but the briefing for Specialty was both brief and had no real debate.  The only issue raised (other than by me) was to ensure that ‘Speciality’ did not include special ed.

Also, the ‘Stop Placement’ subgroup (I think) was really on the ball- they kept emphasizing the importance of communicating with parents, getting actual numbers to see if a given change really saves costs, standardizing the stops, evaluating bus usage.

The Specialty Subgroup stance: “It’s reasonable to expect to ask families to get them to and from centralized stops”.

They see significant savings from the save level of service by centralizing stops to schools and gov’t buildings.  In short, hubs are back.  They discarded having specialty students take the bus to the local school and then get picked up there by another bus, because of logistics (it would work for only morning or afternoon due to travel times).  Also, the required bell time changes would be disruptive to the bell time schedule, they think a bad trade-off.

Given that specialties are spread out and each school is a specialized program, they think a long-term solution is to have neighborhood schools with multiple special programs.  [I think could be a good idea, depends on how done.]  To change the mix long-term, they could co-locate smaller programs in each neighborhood.  A councilwoman asked “each program you wish to replicate has incredible money needs to support it on the professional side”, which was noted but not commented on.

I raised the issue of equity on central locations, if not addressed that could make this unviable (though I was a little annoyed and used the phrase ‘dead in the water’).  I got back a blah blah “something must give”– and no one else addressed it.  So I talked with the subgroup chair afterwards.  He didn’t have ready numbers on things like distances or cost cases.

When I asked if there was a cost savings once you factored in things like staffing or security for the hub, he said there wouldn’t be any staffing there, just like there’s no staffing/security for the current bus stops.

He’s from Montgomery County and they do centralized there, and he says it works.  He suggests parents who cannot drive their kids due to job situations or no car can arrange local carpools etc [which I think is avoiding the issue.]  He agreed in theory to add my 2 concerns to their doc, and I’m going to email him them again.  My concerns were:
* They need to have parental reps/specialty PTA on the implementation plan if they expect ‘community coordination’ to fill gaps.
* They need to do phasing of this to see if it works, not all at once.  He liked the idea of a pilot program.

To briefly note some of the other subgroup plans:
* reduce # of bus lots from 13 to 4 ‘super-lots’ and eliminate lot staff (supervisors, trainers, aux drivers, dispatchers, routers)
* re-do boundaries to increase the number of walkers, especially at schools with high ridership.
* add sidewalks and crossing guards if it increases walkers.
* recognize that efficiency versus community needs are at odds (Boundary had that statement; I wish Specialty did)
* quantify savings if we do reductions, put together scenarios (e.g. increase walkers 25% -> 10% savings or $10.6 mil saved)
* Boundary also noted ‘need same or improved level of service, no change in ride times’
* Test GPS with special needs buses to see if tech helps
* Quantify the ‘dead head’ lots– if you eliminate them, do distances increase and erode the gain?
* look at how many cul de scas buses hit, eliminate for MS/HS (longer walk to bus for those students) but not for ES
* ‘every little piece adds to the total; there isn’t just 1 magic solution’ [Bell Time group]
* train on routing s/w, evaluate other s/w, get a routing grant to study
* change expectation by public of high personal service and minimal walk distance, communicate with parents ASAP
* current walks are 1/4 mile, up to 1.5 mile walk allowed by policy, aim to set new walks to 0.5 miles.
* consolidate stops for fewer than 5 students/stop
* check actual use of stops during year and reassess
* use scan cards for HS students to do bus use tracking

Sandy Antunes

PGTAG Treasurer